


I Wish You Would

by griffxnblake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bellarke, Childhood Friends to Enemies, Dogs, F/M, Misunderstandings, Modern verse, More on that in the notes, Romance, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, estranged friends, i gave bellamy and clarke dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29496249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffxnblake/pseuds/griffxnblake
Summary: Single on Valentine's Day this year, Clarke's only plans were to consume large amounts of food while watching ridiculous romance movies with her dog and best friend, Nova. Things change when Nova suddenly runs away and the only one available to help her is her estranged best friend and Octavia's brother, Bellamy.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 100





	I Wish You Would

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PenguinofProse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/gifts).



> I know I'm a little late but Happy Valentine's Day! This is a gift for the lovely PenguinofProse from our little secret-santa group which gave me a lot of free reign but the general prompt was bellarke being forced together for some reason. It's got dogs, angst, misunderstandings and fluff and I hope you like it! <3

Of all the things Clarke had thought she’d be doing this Valentine’s Day, this was definitely the last thing on her list.

It had started out pretty average, a normal Friday for her. She woke up, got ready for work, made sure Nova had her breakfast, and then she went to work. When she arrived home later, she took Nova outside for a short walk or two around the block since it was chilly out, and then she planned on sitting on the couch with her while she ordered takeout and watched ridiculously cheesy Hallmark movies that would make her feel glad that she was single this year. It was a perfect plan.

But what she didn’t plan on was Nova suddenly pulling on her leash too hard, causing it to slip from Clarke’s hand and watching in horror as the dog sprinted away from her down the block.

“ _ NOVA! NOVA, GET BACK HERE!” _

She ran down the block after her as fast as she could, but the chilly air made it even harder to breathe, much less keep up with the young Australian Shepherd. Nova was as quick as lightning, blink and you’ll miss her. There was no way Clarke would catch up with her unless she actually stopped and allowed her owner to catch up with her.

Clarke didn’t know what to do. What does a person do when their dog suddenly runs away and you have no idea where they could have gone? 

Then the worst thoughts started to fill her thoughts. 

What if she got hit by a car? What if someone stole her? What if someone decided to hurt her? And on top of all that, it was getting colder as the late afternoon wore on and the weather reports said it may even snow tonight.

It took everything in Clarke to not just sit there on the freezing concrete and cry. So she did the next best thing. She called Octavia.

“Hello?”

“O, hey,” she started, her voice shaking from the nerves.

“What’s wrong?” Octavia immediately asked, sounding much more alert.

“I-It’s Nova. We were walking and she just got away and she ran and— I couldn’t keep up with her and she’s gone and I don’t know what to do,” she rambles out quickly, her voice uncharacteristically higher than usual.

“Hold on, I’ll come help you find her, alright? She couldn’t have gone too far,” the brunette responds and it sounds as if there’s a rustling on the other side of the phone, as if her friend is already putting on her coat. The amount of relief that floods Clarke is overwhelming. But then she remembers something.

“Wait, but it’s Valentine’s Day. Don’t you have plans with Lincoln?”

“That’s not til later tonight, I can help you find Nova until then. We’ll find her,” her friend assures her, and Clarke feels guilty but gives a slight nod.

“Only if you’re sure you can. I don’t want to ruin your night.”

She hears Octavia huff into the phone. “Just tell me where to start looking.”

Clarke explains to her the exact location where Nova got loose and the direction she ran, and Octavia says she’ll start heading that way.

“You’re a lifesaver, Octavia. I owe you so much for this,” she says, still power walking in the direction the dog ran, praying that maybe she’ll pop up and around every oncoming corner.

“Yeah yeah, we’ll talk about it later, Griffin. I’ll call you if I find her,” she says just before the line clicks.

———

After only ten minutes, Clarke definitely begins to feel more hopeless.

It’s cold and starting to get dark and she still has no clue where her dog is and if she’s safe and warm somewhere. She just pictures Nova shivering in a ditch or in a box in a dirty alleyway and wishes she could have just held onto the leash tighter so they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Clarke decides the best option is to check familiar locations first. Luckily, Nova ran down a familiar path of theirs so she hopes with some luck that she’ll have stuck nearby.

She passes the coffee shop, asking the workers if they happened to see a dog run past outside, to which they shake their heads. Next, she stops by the diner, thinking maybe Nova would smell the food and decide to stick around, but no luck. She even asks some random passersby if they’ve seen a loose dog in the last little while, and they all give her that same concerned shake of their heads and hopeful “I hope you find her!”

Wandering down the street, feeling more desperate by the minute, she suddenly feels her phone buzz in her pocket and her heart swoops in the hope of it being Octavia letting her know some good news. She fishes it out in a hurry, unlocks it and lets out a sigh of disappointment.

_ Octavia: no luck yet. Sending Bellamy to help you _

Bellamy?

Clarke hasn’t seen Octavia’s older brother in a while, and that’s completely fine as long as Clarke is concerned. She still can’t believe the three of them used to be a tight little group of friends when they were children and teenagers when she thinks of how arrogant and insufferable the older Blake turned out to be, especially toward her. And the funny thing was that she couldn’t figure out what she had ever done to deserve such treatment from him; it was as if one day he just decided that she wasn’t good enough to be around him or Octavia and began to show his disdain for her whenever they saw each other. Octavia said she tried to figure out why he was suddenly so bent out of shape but that he was always blowing it off so she ultimately gave up trying. Clarke figured that was as good as it was going to get.

So what if he had basically been her best friend and she maybe sort of kinda developed feelings for him over the years? It was fine. It was years ago. She had moved on.

She was fine.

But now he’s apparently on his way to help her find Nova, as if she didn’t have enough to be stressed about.

Octavia sends her another text telling her to stay put and that her brother is on the way and to wait for him, and Clarke reluctantly agrees. She feels so useless, just praying that Nova is okay and they find her soon.

Just minutes after that, Clarke is leaning against the side of a building when a man rounds the corner, but he’s not alone: at his side is probably one of the biggest German Shepherds Clarke has ever seen, its fur a dark brown and thick like a lion’s mane.

When she and the man finally lock eyes, she can see the muscle in his jaw clench tight and she stands up a bit straighter, pushing her shoulders back.

“Bellamy.”

“Princess.”

That old nickname makes her grimace but she decides to ignore it, raising a brow at him instead. “Since when do you have a dog?”

“Since this past year,” he quips back, his voice lower than she remembers. 

He actually looks a bit different than she remembers, too. Gone are the long unruly curls he used to have, as well as the lankier figure. She can still see his curls, but his hair is a bit shorter, and she can’t help but notice that he seems broader now, his arms and shoulders looking solid underneath his pea coat and filling it out attractively as if he just got out of doing a damn photo shoot.

“So am I helping you look for your dog or what?” He asks, pulling her out of her brief reverie.

She nods, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Um, yeah. She ran east down this way so I’ve been checking places she would find familiar since we come this way a lot.”

He nods, tightening his grip on his dog’s leash as the large shepherd begins to get antsy. “Good. We should get going before it gets even darker.”

They begin their search in an uncomfortable silence after that, searching every alley and nook and cranny that could possibly fit a dog Nova’s size. Clarke calls out for her dozens of times, and she can see her breath in front of her face as the sun begins to set.

“So what’s your dog’s name?” Clarke asks after another disappointing ten minutes. 

Bellamy glances at his dog in front of him as it pulls him along and then back at her. “Apollo. I adopted him about six months ago. Octavia’s idea,” he explains. 

Sounds about right, Clarke thinks with a smirk. Her friend was definitely the type of person that if she had an idea or wanted you to try something, she usually got her way. But it makes her think that if Bellamy could adopt a dog then maybe he wasn’t the complete asshole she remembers him to be.

“That’s great, but when you say it was her idea, didn’t you want a dog?”

“I was considering it at the time, but she’s the one that actually dragged me to the shelter. She saw Apollo, said we were a match made in heaven, and here we are.”

A frown never leaves his face as he tells her the story and it strikes her as odd. She looks down at Apollo and realizes how much the name does suit him, and how of course Octavia would think he would be perfect for her brother, considering what a mythology nerd he used to be. But Apollo looks about as grumpy as Bellamy as he walks beside them.

“Is it alright if I pet him?” She asks, wondering if that will cheer him up a bit, and maybe make her feel a little better as well.

Bellamy looks uneasy as he adjusts his grip on the leash again. “Um, I’m not sure. He’s kinda weird with people, especially new ones.”

Clarke looks down at Apollo again, crouching down to his level and offering her open palm. “Hey boy, you’re okay, right?”

Apollo cautiously watches her for a moment, keeping his eyes locked on Clarke’s, and when she thinks maybe Bellamy is right and she’s about to pull back, Apollo reaches forward and nudges her hand. He inspects it thoroughly, smelling every inch of her skin, before he begins to lick her hand in earnest.

Clarke grins and carefully reaches forward to scratch behind Apollo’s ear. “See? You’re a good boy, I knew it,” she tells him with a chuckle.

Bellamy watches in absolute shock, almost as if he’s just seen a ghost. 

“What’s the matter with you?” she asks as she continues to give Apollo attention, the large dog pressing his giant head into her hand to get more scratches.

“...How did you do that?”

Clarke raises a brow and chuckles. “Do what? I just let him check me out and then started petting him. It’s not rocket science.”

He opens his mouth to say something but then must change his mind, closing it shut, and Clarke can see that muscle in his jaw tick again. 

“Whatever. We should keep looking,” he mumbles, looking past her as Clarke pushes herself back on her feet.

“I think we should look at the park next. I take her there a lot,” she explains, trying to push past whatever the hell just happened. But Bellamy has a point, they have a goal here, and Clarke is going to find Nova before she goes home tonight. She can’t fathom any other option.

He nods his agreement, and they all begin to make their way toward the nearby park as the last bits of sunlight sink below the horizon.

The next several minutes are filled with that tense and awkward silence again and even though Clarke is worried about finding her dog, she can’t help but wonder what the deal is with Bellamy and his. It’s as if they can barely stand each other, only tolerating the other the same way she and Bellamy do. In the time she’s spent with them, she can’t really sense any affection or bond between them, and it strikes her as odd considering she and Nova are usually attached at the hip.

And there’s another thing that’s been on her mind this whole time as well.

“Don’t you have plans tonight?”

The question must take him off guard since she notices a small falter in his step, but he keeps his sight forward, still refusing to look at her as they walk.

“Not tonight.”

It’s short and clearly dismissive but Clarke can’t help but be irked. Isn’t this the same cocky Bellamy that used to always have a girl on his arm whenever they all went out as a group? The one Octavia was always complaining about because he has a new girl in his bed every other night and always forgets to call her? She didn’t understand it. Bellamy was definitely attractive enough to get a date for Valentine’s Day, so why the hell was he out here helping her look for her dog in the cold?

“Why not?”

He briefly shoots her a glare before letting out a huff and shoving his free hand in his pocket. “I just don’t. Don’t you have plans?” he shoots back.

Clarke narrows her eyes and her thoughts go back to how she had originally planned to order takeout and watch cheesy movies with Nova until she passed out from a food coma, but she doesn’t need to tell him that.

“My plans clearly changed,” is all she says and she thinks she can see him roll his eyes.

“Whatever. The sooner we find your dog, the sooner we can all go home.”

“Her name is Nova,” she corrects. 

“The sooner we find  _ Nova _ , then,” he grits out.

“You know, if you really don’t want to help you can go. I can handle it, really. I know you’re not exactly crazy about me.”

He stops walking, and she does, too, as the silence becomes so palpable that it hits her as hard as the freezing chill in the air.

She honestly doesn’t even know why he’s here, other than the fact that Octavia sent him. But he didn’t have to agree if he really didn’t want to help. And she can’t imagine why he would; they were practically strangers at this point. She wouldn’t have blamed him for telling her or Octavia to fuck off.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

It practically comes out as a growl, one she would expect to come out of Apollo’s mouth by the deep timbre of it. 

So he wanted to play dumb? Fat fucking chance.

“Yeah, right. You know it, I know it. Hell, I’m sure even your dog can tell you’d rather be anywhere but here,” she snaps, walking ahead of him and knocking his arm with hers on the way.

She can practically feel the leering gaze on her, burning enough that even her cheeks have flushed in anger. She doesn’t have time for him or his bullshit, and while she knows Octavia must have meant well, she’s definitely going to question her friend on how she thought this would be a good idea.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Princess.”

“Like hell I don’t, Bellamy! It’s like you’ve forgotten that we actually used to know each other.”

She continues walking, crossing the large entrance gate of the park, and she thinks Bellamy must be gone judging on the silence but then she hears Apollo panting and soft footsteps echoing behind her.

She glances around the large open field of the park, noting that there’s hardly anyone out at this hour. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all. And it’s getting cold as hell now, a realization that makes Clarke more nervous about her canine companion.

She calls out for Nova, whistling and clicking her tongue, anything that might get her attention if she’s nearby, but...nothing. Nova doesn’t seem to be here, either, and tears begin to form at the edges of her vision.

She trudges over to a nearby bench in defeat, checking her phone just in case Octavia has any update for her but there’s nothing from her either. Clarke checks the time, seeing how it’s almost seven already and figures Octavia probably gave up and went to go get ready for her plans with Lincoln. She doesn’t feel upset with her friend, not at all, but the hopelessness is really beginning to set in and she realizes she’s on her own now.

Well, sort of.

Bellamy finally catches up with her, Apollo at his side sniffing along the cement path, before her former friend sits about a foot away from her, his gaze trained on some spot in front of him.

“I didn’t forget,” he eventually says.

“What?”

“You said it’s like I forgot that we used to know each other,” he clarifies. “But I didn’t.”

His tone is unreadable and Clarke isn’t exactly sure what she’s supposed to take from that. Is this some sort of weird half-ass olive branch or something?

“You act like it,” is what she finally decides on.

He sighs and leans back against the bench, stretching his legs out more in front of him, his hands shoved in his coat pockets. “Because I know what you really thought.”

She can’t help but tilt her head in confusion, her eyes narrowed on him. What the hell is he talking about? 

“What I really thought? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Clarke, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t play dumb for my sake.”

“I honestly have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about,” she replies, the edge in her tone sharper now. She doesn’t have time for this. She needs to find Nova, not unravel her years-long issues with Bellamy Blake.

He lets out a huff of annoyance, and Clarke briefly notes how Apollo suddenly seems very interested in some scent that’s pulling him further away from his owner.

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” he grumbles.

Clarke is about to press on when Apollo suddenly pulls on the leash, making Bellamy jerk toward him and they both look at the large dog curiously.

“Apollo! What the hell,” Bellamy hisses, trying to regain his hold on the leash, but the shepherd insists on pulling, facing toward a cluster of barren trees and bushes.

Bellamy finally stands up when the dog begins to whine desperately, and tries to command him to calm down but fails.

“He’s never done this,” Bellamy tells her, sounding as perplexed as Clarke is, but then she looks toward where Apollo is trying to go and raises a brow. 

“Maybe he saw a squirrel or something run over there?”

Bellamy shakes his head. “He never cares about squirrels. He never wants to run or chase anything.”

Clearly something has captured Apollo’s attention though, and she wonders if maybe they shouldn’t ignore it.

“Maybe we should check it out,” she suggests.

It seems as though they don’t exactly have a choice after that since Apollo pulls on his leash even harder, leading Bellamy toward the trees and Clarke follows after them.

Bellamy does his best to keep Apollo in check despite him pulling so hard that he makes a hoarse panting sound. Once they approach the place that caught his attention, the dog becomes even more excited as he sniffs the cold ground and anything within his reach.

“If you let him loose will he come back?” Clarke asks, and Bellamy looks uncertain as he tries to follow wherever Apollo is leading him.

“I’m not sure, I’ve never tried it.”

It’s weird how despite having this dog for several months, Bellamy still doesn’t seem to know much about him at all.

“You said he’s weird around strangers, right? There’s no one around besides us. Unless you want to follow him into all those dead leaves and branches in the dark,” she adds, causing Bellamy to let out an annoyed huff.

“I’d rather we don’t have two lost dogs on our hands,” he retorts, and Clarke knows he’s probably right. She doesn’t want to be the reason Apollo ends up lost in the cold, as well.

“Then let's follow him.”

They try their best for several minutes, and it’s clear that Apollo is annoyed by their slow pace with his soft growls and grunts as he pushes his nose along the ground, still searching for whatever it is he’s scented.

Clarke is only a step or two behind them when she stumbles on a large branch and falls forward, grabbing onto the only thing she can which happens to be Bellamy’s arm. He stops when he feels her, and she thinks she can see a hint of concern on his face.

“You okay?”

She nods, getting her bearings again and lets go of his arm quickly. “Yeah, just didn’t see that one.”

He nods and they continue in silence, following Apollo on his search for  _ something _ until he suddenly lets out a deep bark that startles them both.

They all stop in their tracks, listening for anything, before he lets out another bark.

And then there’s a different bark.

Apollo replies to it with several of his own, and then the other one is getting closer and closer and hope leaps in Clarke’s chest.

“Nova?”

Bellamy looks back at her, his eyes wide as he continues to keep his grip on Apollo’s leash, but it proves to be a little more challenging now that the shepherd is getting notably more excited, bouncing around and keeping his eyes trained on something in the distance.

Clarke hears the bark again and now she’s certain.

“ _ Nova!  _ Nova, where are you?! C’mere girl!”

A few seconds later, a large brown mass of fur comes hurtling through the trees and Apollo finally seems to be satisfied, his tail wagging as he continues to bark in excitement.

“Nova!” Clarke exclaims as the Aussie runs straight toward them and she crouches on the ground just as Nova barrels into her at top speed.

“You’re okay! Where the heck have you been?! You had me worried sick!” Clarke exclaims, feeling tears of relief wetting her cheeks. They make the sting of the cold air worse but she honestly couldn’t care less.

Nova was here and she was safe.

Clarke makes sure to quickly clip Nova’s leash onto her collar before she can run off again, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue since Nova is greeting her as if she hasn’t seen her in months, wriggling around and jumping into her arms and whining excitedly.

“Holy shit,” she hears Bellamy say to himself and she can’t help but beam at him as he watches the reunion with wide eyes. Apollo has finally calmed down and is wagging his tail beside him, his pink tongue lolling as he pants. Clarke can’t help but think he looks like he’s smiling.

Clarke finally stands up, the end of the leash firmly grasped in her hand as she wipes her eyes with the back of the other. 

“Is she okay?” Bellamy asks.

She nods, still smiling like an idiot because she's so damn  _ relieved _ . “Yeah, I think so. A little muddy but she’s fine.”

“I can’t believe we found her. That Apollo… I didn’t know he could do anything like that,” he says, his voice still dazed with shock.

She gives a watery chuckle and approaches them both, leaning down a bit and scratching Apollo behind the ears. “You did it, boy. You don’t know how happy I am. You found my girl.”

Apollo happily accepts the gesture, licking Clarke’s hand when she finally pulls it away. He wags his tail as he studies Nova, and the two dogs cautiously begin to sniff each other.

“Huh,” Bellamy tuts under his breath. “Can’t believe he’s like this because of some girls. He’s been such a jerk to me the entire time I’ve had him.”

It all clicks into place now: the odd body language between the two, their indifference toward one another, the way Bellamy seems to hardly know his own dog.

“Maybe you just need to loosen up. Or be more playful with him instead of being so serious all the time,” she teases, raising a brow before going back to watching the dogs get acquainted with each other.

“I’ve tried! He just decided right off the bat that he hates me,” he complains.

“Dogs don’t hate anyone,” she tells him. “You just have to figure each other out.”

He curses under his breath but she can tell there’s no heat in it, and they begin their walk back out into the main area of the park. Clarke makes sure to send Octavia a quick text to let her know they found Nova, and wishes her a nice evening with Lincoln. The responding text is in all caps and a bunch of heart and kiss emojis.

Bellamy insists on walking her home despite Clarke telling him it’s fine, but he thinks it’s stupid to have been with her this whole time just to leave her to walk home alone after dark. When he doesn’t relent, she reluctantly accepts the offer.

It’s a relatively quiet walk home. The dogs continue to walk near each other, tails wagging the entire way, and other than a little bit of small talk, an awkward silence hangs between their owners.

Now that Nova has been found, something keeps bothering Clarke, urging her to voice her questions while she has the chance and it’s getting more difficult to fight the closer they get to her building.

“So. What did you mean before? Before Apollo found Nova,” she adds, her eyes still cast in front of her, not willing to see Bellamy’s reaction.

A beat.

“Does it matter?”

“I would think so, since it’s the reason you started treating me differently. I thought we were friends, and then suddenly… we weren’t.”

He doesn’t shut her down or dismiss her so quickly this time, and she hopes maybe he’ll finally give her some answers.

The wind ruffles his curls around his face, and something about that and the way she can still see some of his freckles in the glow of the streetlights makes her blush. She hopefully hides it well enough by tipping her chin downward into her scarf.

It’s not fair, really. Even after all these years, she still manages to get a little flustered around Bellamy Blake and it’s ridiculous. She's in her twenties, for fuck’s sake, not a foolish teenager anymore.

“It’s just… One day I accidentally overheard you and Octavia talking. I wasn’t eavesdropping, promise,” he adds quickly, giving her an apologetic glance. “You were talking about me, claiming that you were only friends with me because of Octavia.”

He pauses, and when he sees that Clarke still looks confused, he lets out a sigh and continues. “That if it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t even give me the time of day. That I was  _ just  _ her annoying older brother.”

Clarke stops walking as the memories of that day come back to her. She and Octavia had to be eighteen or nineteen at the time, hanging out in her room on a weekend home from college.

_ “C’mon Clarke, just admit it already that you have a big fat crush on my brother. It’s so damn obvious.” _

_ “I don’t!” Clarke exclaims indignantly, flushing red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” _

_ “You blush every time he walks into the room or so much as touches your arm! And don’t get me started on when you two start arguing. You sound like you’re married already. It’s getting annoying.” _

_ “I don’t think of him like that,” Clarke snaps, beginning to feel even more self conscious with Octavia’s observations. “We’re just friends because of you. He’s just your annoying older brother to me.” _

_ Octavia flat out cackles and Clarke crosses her arms. “Yeah. Sure.” _

_ “He’s not even my type,” Clarke argues, trying to think of anything to get her best friend off her back. “And he’s older. It just wouldn’t work.” _

_ “Then why do you keep turning down anyone that asks you out when we’re at school? None of them were your type either?” _

_ “Is it illegal to politely reject people if you’re not feeling it?” Clarke huffs. “Just let it go, O. Whatever you think about me and Bellamy, stop. It’s not going to happen.” _

“Oh.”

Bellamy stops walking as well, not meeting her eyes, and she feels an immense wave of guilt wash over her. 

No no no no. This was all her fault. And she didn't even realize. She lost one of her best friends over something she didn’t even mean. 

“Bellamy, I...You don’t—“

“Clarke, it’s fine,” he tells her. “It was a long time ago.”

“But I didn’t mean any of that!”

“Then why’d you say it?”

She shakes her head, trying to think about how she could possibly fix this. She feels so stupid.

“Did you hear the whole thing?”

“I heard enough,” he grumbles.

“No, I mean, from the beginning. When Octavia was trying to get me to admit how I felt about you.”

Silence falls between them again and Clarke feels like she’s balancing on a wire, about to tip over and fall at any moment. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows.

“No. What about how you felt about me?” he asks quietly, cautiously.

“She kept… Ugh, she was being super annoying and insisting that I had feelings for you. That we had feelings for each other. Whatever.” She runs a shaky hand through her hair. “And I got nervous and defensive and didn’t feel like dealing with it just then so I just said a bunch of shit to get her to leave me alone.”

He finally glances over at her, his brow furrowed. “So...you didn’t mean any of it?”

She shakes her head, her blue eyes trained on him pleadingly as she hopes he believes her.

“And you… You did have feelings for me?”

She parts her lips slightly and swallows. “Kinda. Yeah.”

He blinks and lets out a deep breath he seemed to be holding, chuckling in disbelief. “I can’t fucking believe it,” he murmurs.

“What?” A sinking feeling suddenly fills her and makes her heart race. “Are you laughing at me?”

His head snaps back toward her, furrowing his brow again. “What? No, I just—“ He takes another deep breath. “Look, when I heard what you said that night, I got angry. And hurt. It’s why I shut you out,” he explains.

“But even after that, it was like I didn’t know how to talk to you anymore,” he continues, a regretful and solemn expression on his face. “And I was angry that I fucked up our friendship by shutting you out. I messed up whatever chance we might have had but I lost my best friend on top of it.”

“Bellamy, I’m so sorry,” she tells him, tears threatening to return to her eyes, though this time they aren’t tears of joy. They’re only ones of heartbreak and regret. If she hadn’t said those things that night instead of just admitting how she felt, things between them might have been completely different. 

“Clarke, you didn’t do anything. I did.”

“Because of what I said!”

It occurs to her now that they’re having this entire conversation out in the cold after dark, and that maybe it would be better to continue somewhere in private. 

“Can we maybe talk about this back at my place?” she asks softly.

Bellamy relaxes his shoulders and after a long moment, nods. 

Luckily it’s not too much further, but Clarke’s mind is swimming with the entire night’s events and confessions that she almost passes her building. Bellamy stays quiet throughout the walk, and she wonders if maybe his mind is in overdrive, too.

They all follow her inside, and Nova immediately rushes over to her water bowl and Clarke gives her her dinner and watches as the poor thing scarfs down every last crumb. She tells Bellamy that he and Apollo can relax in the living room while she cleans up Nova a little bit and makes sure she’s fine before returning to them. She finds Bellamy sitting on her couch deep in thought while Apollo seems to have found interest in one of Nova’s toys.

“Would you like something to drink? Or eat?” she offers shyly.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s okay, I’m fine. Can I ask you something?”

Clarke’s heart jumps into her throat but she nods. “Yeah. Anything.”

She notes how she can see the muscle in his jaw working and she hates how she still can’t get over how perfect his jawline is. Even after all these years it’s the same damn thing.

“Did you have plans with anyone tonight?”

“No.” A moment. “Did you?”

“No.”

They look at each other for the briefest of moments, but it also feels like it stretches into an eternity. Then, suddenly, Bellamy is up and striding across the small living room and his lips are capturing hers and everything stills and implodes all at once.

It begins carefully, as if they’re both testing the waters and seeking permission, but once it passes they both begin to crave more and their movements are more and more confident, pouring a million unsaid thoughts and feelings into the kiss. It leaves Clarke breathless but wanting more, more,  _ more _ as she clutches the front of Bellamy’s coat and his hands cup her jaw and move to tangle in her hair.

When they pull away it’s only a fraction of an inch, both their lips kiss-swollen and curved upward in tentative smiles. Clarke beams as she surges upward to steal one more kiss, instantly loving the moan it triggers from Bellamy.

“What was that one for?” he asks, grinning in a way she hasn’t seen in years but it’s still just as blinding.

“For helping me tonight,” she explains, a soft teasing smile on her lips. “For finding Nova. And because it  _ is  _ Valentine’s Day.”

“I didn’t find Nova; Apollo did.”

“So I should kiss him instead?”

“Hell no,” he breathes before he captures her mouth with his, kissing her more fervently than before. They stumble their way over to the couch, not caring if their dogs are watching them or not.

No, these weren’t the plans Clarke had for that night, not even close. But maybe it wasn’t a complete and total loss.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've gotten to this point, thank you for reading!!
> 
> This particular fic is a one-shot but it also serves as a sort-of introduction to a much longer fic that I've been working on for almost two years but haven't been able to complete, which hopefully changes this year! It introduces Nova and Apollo, Clarke and Bellamy's dogs and the role they play in their lives and how they ultimately bring these two strangers together. Despite only living in my drafts and headcanons, Sara (softblakegriffin) and I have really created a deep and complex story for them and they are our babies. Sara has literally been yelling at me for the last two years to write this fic and I guess she's waited long enough lol. If it's something you think you'd like to read, please let me know in the comments below :) And once again, thanks for reading! <3


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